"I would suggest that the first step in reflecting on a theology of creativity is to understand that one of our fundamental creative acts is to create our conceptions of divinity. The tasks, then, of theology and the mission of the Church invite us to examine the concepts we create and how we carry out the call to be co-creators of goodness, truth, beauty, and holiness. Our ideas and thinking about God form the backdrop of all that we do and all that we create.

In the words of Miles Davis, one of the world’s greatest musicians: “I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”

Our faith in God rests on our belief that God is the Creator — the Uncreated Creator. As people interested in the power of creativity, we know deeply that we were created, are created, in the first place. And we believe we were created in the image of God.

I suspect that to be made in the image of God has to do with our ability to be rational, to be stewards of the earth, to represent God to each other. Called into covenant with God, the covenant could be read this way: I set before you life and death. Choose to create life, choose to create goodness, choose to create the beautiful, and choose to create the truth through the art of your actions."

Read it all here. The article also comes with a soundtrack: Miles Davis, Blue in Green, which you can listen to here.

"That's really the surprise of Easter. We don't have to wait until we get to heaven to experience it. It is happening all around us.

But of course, the problem is that because it is not fulfilled at every moment, we don't see it because of what's going on in the world. There's a chance that we could miss it by simply not being attentive and aware to the possibilities of reconciliation and peace… "

"Freedom is about choices: Freedom to choose less rather than more. It's about choosing time for people and ideas and self-growth rather than for maintenance and guarding and possessing and cleaning. Simple living is about moving through life rather lightly, delighting in the plain and the subtle. It is about poetry and dance, song and art, music and grace. It is about optimism and humor, gratitude and appreciation. It is about embracing life with wide-open arms. It's about living and giving with no strings attached."

"As Jesus spoke His last words on the cross, 'it is finished,' it did not seem like a proper ending for his narrative or life's work. Could it be that His words were filled with a sense of longing, visions that went beyond His death on the cross, hope that would restore humanity, a peace beyond human measure? As the story unfolds, beauty is revealed through brokenness, upon a cross-woven easel of man's own design, creating the possibility for a sequence of events beyond the grave. A saving grace remains beyond grief and sorrow, awaiting the resurrection of God's own design.

In consideration of Christ's generosity, I realize that there remains a greater calling in life. It is not enough to seek out audiences requesting that they make further sacrifices. Rather, as artists we should be the lens by which they see the value and beauty of the sacrifices they already make. As a reflection of the Creator upon the created, every artist has the potential to become a curator of the message of truth, which serves to resurrect the underlying hope within the audience of mankind."

"When Jesus rises from the tomb, he says to Mary Magdalene in the garden, “Go and tell Peter and the others that I have gone before you into Galilee and I will meet them there.” The words are prophetic ones for us all. Jesus does not promise to meet the disciples in Jerusalem, at the center of power and profit, as an Establishment figure of either state or synagogue, as the vindicated and recognized one. No, the last act of Jesus is to lead the disciples to the Galilee, to the backwaters of Israel, to the hinterlands of the poor and dispossessed, to the forgotten and the oppressed ones. Where he had spent his public life on behalf of the forgotten one, he expects us to spend ours."

Like many artists and photographers before me, I discovered this crucified Jesus beyond religion, through the lens of art and service.

This Jesus, I found, doesn’t leave. He stays with us and each day we decide if he will remain crucified, or come down from the cross to feed the poor, to shelter the homeless, to love the unloved, to walk in the world again.

(Note: The crucifix shown above sits on a side-wall in the sanctuary at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Plymouth, Michigan.)

"When all of our own hopes have died, we still have this faith that seeks nothing for itself-not wisdom, not spiritual power, not rescue from suffering. 'Success' is not in its vocabulary. This faith seeks nothing but God, to whom it is willing to surrender everything-up to and including its own cherished beliefs about who God is and how God should act.

This faith is willing to sell all that it owns and bet the farm on one chance for union with God. This kind of faith, embodied by Jesus, is what makes him the Christ—God's own Being of Light, God's own Anointed One—whose self-annihilating love for us and for all creation is never more vivid than it is on this day.

Today, on the quietest day of the year, we have come to sit in the presence of one who was fully who God created him to be every day of his life—who loved God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind—and who loved his friends so much that he stepped into the oncoming traffic of death in order to push them out of the way. He furthermore did it all with no more than the basic human equipment—a beating heart, two good hands, a holy vision, and some companions who could see it too—thereby showing the rest of us humans that such a life is not beyond our reach. Whatever else happens on Sunday, here is enough reason to call this Friday Good. Amen."

"Jesus' journey is at times brutal. He has entered into the terrible experiences of rejection and injustice. He has been whipped and beaten. His face shows the signs of his solidarity with all who have ever suffered injustice and vile, abusive treatment. He encounters a compassionate, loving disciple who wipes the vulgar spit and mocking blood from his face. On her veil, she discovers the image of his face - his gift to her. And, for us to contemplate forever." (From the Stations of the Cross at Creighton University, more here.)

"God of Peace, help me to forgive those who hurt or betray me and strengthen me to be worthy of others' trust in me. Let your steadfast love and compassion flow through me that I may be your presence in this world."

We seek the sanctuary of liturgy and commemoration this week. We need these places, sanctuaries, to bring our pain and find our hope.

As artists we go about the work of creating sanctuaries, and in today's Morning Prayer Rite II (as published in The Book of Common Prayer) we read this prayer:

"O God, who by your Holy Spirit give to some the word of wisdom, to others the word of knowledge, and to others the word of faith: We praise you for the gifts of preaching through visual representation that you gave to your servants Albrecht Duerer and Michaelangelo Buonarroti, and we pray that your Church may never be destitute of such gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns, with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

"We are praying with great memories in our liturgy. There are scenes of violence, betrayal, surrender, and regret. We pray with the fidelity and trust with which Jesus walks towards his saving death.

We pray as well with the violence within and around us these days. Humanity is suffering from terrible insults to its being in Christ. We pray with our own sense of helplessness, as did his loving mother and even his friends who denied him and abandoned him. We are praying intensely with our desires to be freed again from the slavery of forgetfulness. We pray to remember again who Jesus is saying we all are by his life of faithful trust. We gather together to do the ancient rituals by which we are saved in our times." By Larry Gillick, S.J., in Daily Reflection, Creighton University. Read it all HERE.